The lawyers of LexProf won another professional victory

pravoThe lawyers of LexProf won another professional victory. The value of claimed and satisfied by the court of the appellate instance claims under the lawsuit exceeded 95 million rubles. A point of the lawsuit was as follows:

In 2007 a loan contract was signed for 60 million rubles, in 2008 the parties entered into an additional agreement to the loan agreement, which increased the loan amount to 150 million rubles. However, this additional agreement was signed by an unauthorized person on behalf of the borrower. This circumstance and expiration of limitation term became the main arguments of the defendant.

The plaintiff acknowledged the fact of signing the additional agreement by the unauthorized person. However, the court of the first instance did not take into account that the conclusion of the additional agreement did not entail the invalidity of the loan agreement in the amount exceeding 60 million rubles. The only legal consequence of this circumstance was the failure to comply with the written form of the loan agreement. The loan agreement was a real transaction in accordance with para. 2 part 1 Article 807 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and was considered as concluded from the moment of money transfer, and not from the moment of signing of the corresponding agreement. In confirmation of the loan agreement, the plaintiff submitted the relevant payment orders and statements of cash flow on the settlement account, according to which the defendant received cash with the purpose of payment under the loan agreement. The fact of concluding the loan agreement in this case was confirmed not by signing the corresponding agreement, but by transferring funds to the defendant's account.

In the plaintiff’s opinion, non-compliance with the written form of the loan agreement led to inconsistencies between the parties such a condition as the time for the return of funds. The limitation period in this case was calculated according to the rules of Article 810 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and began to flow after 30 days from the date of submission of the relevant requirements to the defendant.

The court of the first instance refused to satisfy the claims to the plaintiff, the decision indicated that in the absence of a signed supplementary agreement between the parties there are legal obligations as a result of unjust enrichment and the limitation term for such obligation at the time of the statement of claim filing expired. The higher court on November 5, 2013 reversed the decision of the court of the first instance completely, sought in favor of the plaintiff the debt under the loan agreement in the amount of more than 95 million rubles and supported the position set forth by the experts of the law firm in the appeal.

The lawyers of LexProf managed to substantiate the following provisions, which have a precedent character:

  • the fact of signing an additional agreement to the loan agreement by an unauthorized person did not affect the validity of the loan agreement, if it was actually executed, but entailed only non-compliance with a simple written contract form,

  • non-observance of the simple written form of the contract resulted in inconsistencies between the parties for interest in the use of borrowed funds and the time for repayment of the loan, and as a consequence, entailed the application of para. 2 p. 1 of Article 810 of the Civil Code, according to which the loan repayment period was determined by the moments when the claim was submitted to the borrower.